Draconian cuts: - 12/2000

After failing to close a vitally important $45 million funding round, Walker Digital Corp., the Stamford CT-based technology incubator, pulled the plug on three of its early-stage investments, including HighCircle.com, a Los Angeles-based online job referral service that soft-launched in September. On November 20 we got a call from Walker Digital who said their funding went south and told us we'd have to shut down operations and layoff our 14-person staff, said HighCircle.com CEO Man Jit Singh. The news completely caught us by surprise. We are scrambling now to do everything that we can to find a strategic investor, who will get a great technology that has been tested and is fully operational, a management team and customer base all at a relatively cheap price. To date, the e-cruiting business has signed up 32 customers, all Fortune 100 companies. This is really a recruiting category killer app, said Singh. I am not giving up. This is just a setback.